Film

Flawless (1999)

Director: Joel Schumacher

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

For what it's worth, this could be Schumacher's best film. There's no stylised-to-oblivion cartoon sensationalism, none of the knee-jerk politics of Falling Down; just two lonely men in a big bad city (New York, natch), and a couple of involved performances from De Niro and Hoffman, one bearing a speech impediment, the other wearing a dress. The story's an opposites-repel number, a chaste male love story charting the reluctant meeting of minds of homophobic cop Walt and ballsy drag diva Rusty, tenement-block neighbours who spend their spare time squabbling across the courtyard that separates them. An uninvolving mob-loot plot, which mostly keeps itself in the background, intercedes to leave the policeman crippled by a stroke. Too ashamed to seek help from his friends, he grudgingly shuffles upstairs and supplicates Rusty for singing lessons by way of therapy. A palatably mainstream critique of pride, prejudice and identity barriers, it's unexceptional material; indeed, it might seem drab were it not for the leads. De Niro pulls out a couple of stops, and Hoffman has a ball.

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